International migration fuels Nashville's continued population growth
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The Nashville area continues to grow faster than the country overall, and international immigration is playing a sizable role.
Why it matters: Nashville and its suburbs surged past 2 million people during the pandemic. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that trend continuing. It also digs into the numbers to show who is accounting for our region's rapid rise.
By the numbers: The number of people living in the Nashville metro area — which includes Murfreesboro, Franklin and other suburbs — increased by more than 136,000 from 2020 to 2024, a gain of about 6.4%.
Zoom in: Of that figure, only about 27,000 came from "natural change," which subtracts the number of deaths from the number of births.
- The lion's share of the growth, as is well documented, came from an influx of people moving into the Nashville area from elsewhere.
Catch up quick: We've written extensively about the pool of people who moved to Music City from California, New York or other states. That amounts to some 72,000 people since 2020.
- But arrivals from other countries are an underreported part of the story.
The intrigue: Nearly 38,000 people have moved to Nashville from other countries since 2020, according to the census data.
- That accounts for about 28% of our region's total growth in that time.
Flashback: The trend is not a new one. Former President Obama traveled to Nashville in 2014 to discuss immigration. He spoke about the vibrancy of our immigrant community during a visit to the Casa Azafran community center.
- The Atlantic reported on Nashville as an international hub in 2015, noting that the metro area's foreign-born population had more than doubled since 2000.
- The chamber of commerce noted that the city's efforts to embrace the immigrant community had "helped create tangible economic gains across the city and across sectors."
The big picture: International arrivals are also making an impact statewide. A December report from the Tennessee State Data Center found the state probably saw an all-time high in international migration last year.
- The uptick in international migration helped to keep our state's population growth strong even as arrivals from other states slowed a bit, the report found.